Newt Pounds Mitt in New Hampshire

Folks said the attacks were coming, and I was looking for the videos while blogging yesterday. So here's a first salvo out today, via Hot Air, "New Gingrich attack ad: “Timid vs Bold”."

And here's William Jacobson on taking out Romney, "Going after Romney is patriotic, too":

Remember when one Republican candidate viciously attacking the leading Republican candidate was patriotic?

Like in Iowa, when everyone from Charles Krauthammer on down blamed Newt’s past for the several millions dollars in negative attack ads run by a pro-Romney SuperPAC?  When National Review devoted almost an entire issue to attacking Newt and portraying him as a martian cartoon character?  When the once-conservative rock star Ann Coulter called anyone who supported Newt a birther?  When the entire conservative Washington establishment (yes, it does exist) engaged in what David Limbaugh called “relentless, unmeasured scorched-earth savagery” directed at Newt?

Hey, that’s just politics, it ain’t beanbag, we were told.

But the second Newt announced he was done playing defense and would make Mitt Romney’s record of flip flops and anti-conservative rhetoric and actions an issue, all of the sudden attacking an opponent was not patriotic, it was a spiteful, angry, vindictive and vengeful “darker message,” the equivalent of road rage.

No, actually it is what we have needed for months.

Continue reading.

Williams warns that Romney's an "incredibly weak frontrunner," and Ben Shapiro seconds the point, "The Great Conservative Sell-Out":

 Much of the conservative punditocracy has declared that Mitt Romney is the consensus conservative candidate. If he is, he’s the least consensual consensus candidate in modern political history — the man can’t break 25 percent with a sledgehammer. While his supporters shout from the hills that Romney essentially tied for the win in Iowa, his glass remains three-quarters empty, with no-name Rick Santorum winning as much of the vote, Ron Paul winning nearly as much, and Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry combining for as much. The last time a Republican candidate captured the nomination for the presidency by winning Iowa with this low a vote total, his name was Bob Dole. A couple of years later, he was hawking Viagra.

Nonetheless, the word is out: The fix is in. Unbelievably, not a single anti-Romney television ad was run in the state of Iowa. And while a few conservatives — including yours truly — have come out and opposed nominating the most left-wing Republican in the field, many more conservatives have endorsed Romney’s candidacy.

More at that link.

A great piece.